So, she went in the crate on Monday night. She was not pleased. She spent most of the night banging and crashing about, in a temper, as we thought. However, in the morning, the score appeared to be Lilith 1 : Cone 0. She’d managed to remove it during the hours of darkness. We looked at her, we looked at it, we thought “no, thanks”. And she is so much more comfortable without it, and doesn’t seem to be pulling at her stitches at all (and the wound looks to be healing properly), we’ve left it off.

She has a ravening appetite, but after Tuesday morning’s escapade, she’s been content to stay in the house. Most of yesterday was spent curled up on Pete’s hessian backpack, on a cool, quiet shelf in the bedroom; presumably, at some point, the pack annoyed her in some way, and she cast it to the ground. But she looked relaxed, and comfortable, and properly asleep. Apart from her Sheba morning and night, she consumed 60g of roast turkey during the afternoon (Ron and Henry obligingly finished the rest), and then she moved downstairs to sleep on the dining table when we were in the living room. She can jump a bit higher, move a little easier, every day, and I am utterly confident that she will cope, and cope well, in the future.

Considering the practicalities of stuffing a cat in her condition, with her attitude, into one of our front opening cat boxes, Pete cycled off to the vets yesterday and picked up a top loading wire basket. Astonishingly, neither Argos nor Pets at Home stock these; now we have one, they seem far nicer for most cat journeys.

We put her back in her cage last night, not least because we are keeping the cat flap shut during the day (the boys can go though the back door and over the walls. I’m hoping she, er, won’t). But at night, they need to come and go at will, and I’m not ready to let her out the front before the stitches are out. She banged about a bit, but settled quite quickly, so that’s where she’ll be at night for a while, and during the day too if we’re out for any length of time. The cone stopped her getting through the flap, but now it’s been vanquished, we need to ensuring that she is safe. And the neighbourhood, come to that.

We also hear that the Woman Up The Road has now moved out. Thank $deity for that. Pity I couldn’t stiff her for some of the bill, though.